FAT32, NTFS, and Zotero

chrisalbon · February 7, 2008

Just a little possible heads up:

I had Zotero installed on a NTFS USB2 Harddrive. However, whenever I would access Zotero via Firefox on my Linux PC (EEEPC) the Zotero Database would become corrupted.

This was a little more than annoying. Guided by some non-zotero specific advice online, I reformatted the HD as FAT32 and, as far as I can tell, the problem seems to have disappeared.

dstillman · February 7, 2008

What was your indication that the database was becoming corrupted? The Check Database Integrity button in the Zotero prefs, or something else? I ask because that button seems to return spurious error messages on Linux when the database isn't actually corrupted, so you'd need to use the SQLite command-line client or a message from the DB repair tool to know for sure...

chrisalbon · February 7, 2008

Hi Dan,

1) When I tried to use Zotero on my Linux PC it said "Error in the Database, Please restart firefox".

2) Then, when I tried to access that database with windows it said the same thing.

3) I did the Database Integrity button and it said there was errors in the database

4) I used the online zotero database repair tool, it said there were errors in the database and fixed them.

chrisalbon · February 7, 2008

I am 99% positive I can replicate this (it happened last time I used zotero on my eeepc aswell). If you are interested I'll replicate it and send you the corrupted database.

dstillman · February 7, 2008

Rather than sending us the database by e-mail, you can just upload it to the DB Repair Tool and send us the Upload ID at support@zot....org, and we'll take a look.

If you can reliably reproduce the corruption, we'd actually be more interested in knowing if it also happens in Firefox 3. If you could make a new Firefox profile, copy your (uncorrupted) Zotero data directory into it, open that profile with Firefox 3, load the Zotero trunk XPI into that profile, and try to reproduce the corruption, that'd be really helpful. (Note to others: The trunk XPI is not stable, not up-to-date with the latest 1.0 changes, and not intended for daily use.)